The present invention relates to the field of transporting hazardous materials, especially radioactive materials, to an apparatus for measuring and testing, especially an apparatus for differential thermal analysis.
Radioactive materials are often handled in a containment area such as a glovebox. However, apparatus for analyzing radioactive materials is often located outside of the containment area. For example, a sample of radioactive material may be taken in a glovebox for analysis in a differential thermal analyzer located outside the glovebox.
More specifically, a standard commercial differential thermal analysis (DTA) apparatus would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to operate inside a glovebox due to the fact that the DTA apparatus components are extremely fragile. Moreover, milligram quantities of the sample material must be handled with a precision that is extremely difficult and time consuming to perform within the confines of a containment device such as a glovebox. Furthermore, proper maintenance of a DTA apparatus would be difficult inside a glovebox. In addition, a furnace for DTA may routinely operate at 1,000 degrees Centigrade, thereby making it economically unfeasible to adequately cool the glovebox to within current specifications for proper fire prevention.
In analyzing a radioactive sample in an apparatus outside a glovebox, it is desirable that the radioactive sample does not come into contact with either personnel or the environment outside the analytical apparatus. More specifically it is desirable that a radioactive sample remain untouched by personnel and isolated from the environment as the sample is taken, as the sample is loaded into a sample transporter in a glovebox, as the sample is transported to an analytical apparatus, as the sample is analyzed and as the analyzed sample is returned to the glovebox.